This Red Planet – An Introduction
This Red Planet, my 2022 book, was originally intended as a look into the issues of being a modern-day Liverpool fan in various parts of the world, and at various ages – the joys but also the increasing madness (and general diminishing mental health) in the era of social media and hot-takes – with some of the 2021/22 season mixed in. But the season somewhat overtook the book, as it were, and became so all-consuming that a lot of those ideas had to be diluted.
As such, before even finishing the book, the aim was to do the ideas justice online at a later date, and expand on them indefinitely, without a deadline.
I'd spoken with TTT stalwart Daniel Rhodes frequently about the issues I wanted to cover, and so we've set up this Substack, as part of The Tomkins Times' different areas of focus.
To explain a little further, what follows below is a brief excerpt from the Introduction to This Red Planet: How Jürgen Klopp’s Liverpool FC Enthralled and Conquered The World by Paul Tomkins:
Unification
Above all else, football unifies. Of course, it divides too, but at its best it brings everyone together, from different countries, religions, races, political leanings and sexual identities. And this is a big Red planet.
Under American ownership, Liverpool had a German manager, corralling an Egyptian goal machine, a Dutch defensive rock, and a Brazilian trio of guts and guile and glue-like gloves. There was a Senegalese scorer, a Spanish maestro, a French substrat rocheux and a cavalier Colombian; a German-Cameroonian cool-cat, a Greek madman, a Guinean grafter; a Japanese marksman, a Belgian cult hero, a Portuguese poacher, and a laid-back Irish custodian; plus a batch of Brits who brought Mackem might, Yorkshire-hewn grit, Scottish indefatigability and Scouse skill.
Now, to go forward, there’s a tall Uruguayan goal-getter, in Darwin Núñez; a Portuguese-Brit lock-picker in Fábio Carvalho; and an Aberdonian full-back flyer in Calvin Ramsay; as well as others who will emerge from the academy, as they have done with regularity in recent seasons.
Genesis
I started writing this book in earnest – after a couple of years of research – in January 2022, when it seemed that the Reds’ league season had fallen apart.
I’d very publicly written off the Reds’ chances of the title when 11 points behind, and then the gap rose to 14 points. It seemed a chasm, for a team then out of form, against a team that rarely slipped up. I didn’t enjoy being proved right in the end, but I did enjoy almost being proved wrong.
I never make assumptions about the Champions League, as you can get knocked out despite being the better team (as various teams found when playing Real Madrid), and the FA Cup had not been something Klopp could ever really focus on, beyond playing some kids when going out in the early rounds (or beating Everton).
So, with the season – to my eyes – likely to peter out, I chose to finally focus on the story of modern Liverpool FC: how, across the world, communities are united by this passion, in an age where division is almost built into the daily way of life. And, a book about how to enjoy these remarkable rides, when at times they seem to rid us of our sanity.
Just as he tends to, Jürgen Klopp put a gigantic spanner in the works – and revived the season to the point where I had no idea if somehow I’d end up writing about a quadruple (even if it such an unlikely achievement was never even in Liverpool’s own hands, once they could ‘only’ draw at Manchester City in April). In the end, the Reds fell agonisingly short, but they added reams to the folklore, if just two trophies to the cabinet.
As such, this book focuses more on 2021/22 than I intended, as so much happened.
Indeed, so much happened that I had essentially written two books concurrently, and even then, the ideas could be expanded further. It proved the most difficult book I’ve ever written, as I had so many things to focus on, and there were so many (genuinely) must-win games for Liverpool that it took a toll on my ongoing health issues.
I had also wanted to visit more Liverpool fans outside the UK, ever since meeting up with the Icelandic supporters’ club (and the lovely LFChistory.net guys) in Reykjavík in 2015 (when starting the research for my soon-to-be-finished second novel), or the Westport group in Ireland, who invited me out to their event in 2005 (along with Jonathan Swain, who assisted me on my first book). In the end, connecting to people around the world online has been the most practical way, when these days even getting to Anfield can be a challenge for me.
With so much content left over, I will put extra chapters onto The Tomkins Times’ (TTT) website and Substack, as well as expanding myriad ideas and big themes – connection, our mental health as football fans, the divisive nature of social media, the things that diminish our joy, and how we can find fulfilment in following our team – that were only half-formed by this summer. (I almost had a meltdown when I saw that 2022/23 starts in July. I love football, but at times it feels like too much of a good thing; especially with rivals’ games, spread across the week or the weekend, creating a constant state of tension.)
As ever, none of my books are ever definitive accounts, but this, like the others, can hopefully provide some unique insights, and give a flavour of what went on. I offer my own perspectives, albeit honed and shaped by the environment, which includes the various bright minds of TTT, as well as the odd scrap of inside information.
While a standalone volume in its own right, This Red Planet is perhaps best seen as the third instalment in the unofficial trilogy of Mentality Monsters (2019) and Perched (2020), which, amongst other things, cover the procurement and development of (most of) the squad and coaching staff that achieved so much from the run-in of 2020/21 through to the consistent excellence of 2021/22 (with the possibility of a quadrilogy one day, given that Klopp’s work is not done, and he extended his contract to 2026).
In a couple of places I revisited, rewrote and reworked my own pre-existing articles, but most of it is confined to the second chapter, which seemed a good semi-starting point for this book: just how insane 2020/21 had been, in terms of terrible luck, Covid lockdowns, and the lowdown on what I (correctly) thought were fixable problems, that everyone else seemed to be missing. It’s worth noting that not one single BBC pundit, out of the 20 asked to pick their top four in order for 2021/22 ahead of the first game in August 2021, listed Liverpool as potential champions; yet seven went for Chelsea. Three of the 20 pundits were ex-Liverpool players, and only Danny Murphy and Mark Lawrenson had Liverpool finishing 2nd (Stephen Warnock said 3rd); the other 17 said 3rd, 4th or in the case of Jermaine Beckford, not even in the top four, and thus behind Everton, his choice for 4th (and thus, Everton got one more vote than Spurs, who finished there). The aggregate predictions had Manchester City as champions, Chelsea 2nd, Manchester United 3rd and Liverpool 4th.
This perhaps shows how little outsiders understood Liverpool in 2020/21. But once I’ve reminded people of the various reasons, that I diagnosed at the time, for that team unfairly judged as ‘failing’, I’ll move on to this past season, and all the broken records, the brilliant performances, the trophies won, the methods deployed, and along the way, some perspectives from fans around the world, who shared in the delights.
As a bald, bespectacled football writer with a big nose once said, teams are not always duly rewarded for their brilliance, but they are remembered for their brilliance.
This Red Planet is available via all online Amazon stores in Kindle format, and via some Amazon stores as a paperback.